Chapter Text
Since forever, Ye Qiu and Ye Xiu mastered the art of pretending to be each other. After all, what was the use of being identical twins if they couldn’t even mimic each other?
Even when Ye Xiu had been away from home (No thanks to him), brothers were still brothers. Ye Qiu was the most familiar with his brother, he knew the core personality of his elder brother, something that wouldn’t change even if they got separated.
So when someone he didn’t know approached him and called him his name but Ye Qiu never recalled ever meeting them because he just returned to the country after taking a post-graduate degree abroad?
Must be Ye Xiu’s.
Ye Qiu was never interested in his brother’s exploit outside as a runaway young master, all he ever cared was when that disgraceful brother would come home. But he knew his brother used his identity to be a pro gamer, not exactly a good way to bring glory to his little brother’s name, the same little brother that his luggage he stole to run away in his stead.
Asshole.
But Ye Qiu was generous, he was kind and caring enough for his big brother to let him steal Ye Qiu’s identity. Who told them to be identical twins?
But that also meant some confusion might happen, what’s with the same face and name and all.
Just like this moment.
“It’s unlike you to be in a place like this,” The tanned, muscly, man sitting in front of Ye Qiu said with an arch of his eyebrow.
Ye Qiu took a sip of his iced minty dark coffee, weighing his options. “We all have our moments, don’t we all?” he smiled, crinkling the side of his eyes to look mischievous.
Ye Qiu had tried to bail after that. He didn’t run from business meeting-turned marriage meeting arranged by his mother only to run to his brother’s acquaintance. But even after thinking for a way out for ten minutes straight, he couldn’t... mainly because he saw his mother’s people crossing the street so he shrank his neck and stayed at the coffee shop much longer than intended.
In his time hiding from his mother, Ye Qiu talked some more to the man he had yet to learn the name of.
“I’ll buy you a coffee,” Ye Qiu took some cash he had and gave it to the barista who was cleaning the table next to them. “Iced Americano for him.”
“Okay. Who is it for?” The barista politely asked for a name.
Ye Qiu took a long sip of his coffee and glanced at the man surreptitiously.
“Han Wenqing,” Han Wenqing answered then glanced at Ye Qiu in mild confusion.
Ye Qiu put down his cup of coffee and smiled leisurely at Han Wenqing. This person looked a tad bit older than him, so Ye Xiu should call him... “What brings you here, Old Han?”
“I should be the one asking that, isn’t it?” Han Wenqing arched his brows. “I’m not the one outside his home city.”
“Right. But you’re not the type to come to a coffee shop either.” Please be right, be right, be right.
“I saw you and had to confirm,” Han Wenqing replied.
Ye Qiu nodded. “So, how’s life going? Any new plan?”
“Not much to be said. You? What are you doing in Q City?”
“Visiting a distant relative,” Ye Qiu lied. “Nothing too important. Also feeling like travelling, you know?”
“Is that so?” Han Wenqing arched his brows. “Su Mucheng is not with you?” he asked.
“No. Why would she be?” Who on earth is Su Mucheng?
Ye Qiu kept his gaze straight at Han Wenqing with a carefully calculated blank expression that seemed to convey the message of ‘Think about what you just said. It makes no sense.’
Han Wenqing’s suspicious expression crumbled to exasperation in a second. “She’s never separated from you, so I just thought.”
Ye Qiu smiled. “She’s not my girlfriend, Old Han. She has her own plans and I have mine.” Whoever this Su Mucheng is, Ye Qiu was sure she wasn’t Ye Xiu’s girlfriend. Even if she was, there was no way it was an open or sure relationship, not when Ye Qiu knew nothing of it. Ye Qiu liked to think Ye Xiu would still have some reservation about letting him know first if he got into a relationship.
Han Wenqing hummed thoughtfully at that and his Iced Americano was done. Ye Qiu watched calmly as the man got up to fetch his drink and returned to the table.
“I thought you’re here to fetch something you accidentally left behind,” Han Wenqing said.
‘Damn it, too personal.’ Ye Qiu took another sip of his coffee and gazed at Han Wenqing thoughtfully. Was he assuming Ye Xiu left something or Ye Xiu did leave something? Ye Qiu didn’t know.
Han Wenqing arched his brows. “What else should I assume? The celebration ended two weeks ago, some people still messaged Zhang Xinjie to take care of the things they accidentally left behind,” He complained with a low tone.
Some people actually left behind their things in this celebration, there could only be one possibility. “It was wild,” Ye Qiu said. “But no. I’m just here for sightseeing. I’m actually surprised when you come here and talk to me.” Honestly, really.
Han Wenqing nodded and they sat in comfortable silence for a while, observing the busy street outside the coffee shop.
“What’s your plan after this?” Han Wenqing asked quietly.
Ye Qiu tilted his head slightly and smiled mischievously. “Why, Old Han. Do you want to take me somewhere?” He teased in a Ye Xiu-esque way.
“Yes.” Was Han Wenqing’s curt response.
Ye Qiu wondered if it was already too late to tell this guy he got the wrong person.
It turned out, Han Wenqing didn’t want to drag Ye Qiu somewhere to secretly dispose of his body. What? He wasn’t being paranoid. When Ye Qiu agreed with his proposal, Han Wenqing fished out a mask and a cap out of nowhere as though wanting to hide his identity. Of course, Ye Qiu assumed the worst and nearly exposed himself by taking out his phone to turn it on and call for reinforcement.
But thankfully, it was just Ye Qiu being overtly distrustful. Again, not his fault. It was hard to not come out with a trust issue after your own twin brother stole your luggage and ran away instead of you.
Han Wenqing brought Ye Qiu to an internet cafe. He seemed to know the owner who only snapped a thumb up at him and told him to go to the usual place. ‘The usual’ place seemed to be an isolated corner which not many customers went to.
Ye Qiu knew trouble when he saw it.
“You want to play?” Ye Qiu asked, trying to mask a surprise in his voice.
“What else?” Han Wenqing grunted.
Ye Qiu stood dumbly in front of the computer. ‘Quick, think something!’ he yelled internally at himself.
Han Wenqing noticed Ye Qiu’s pause and narrowed his eyes. “You brought your account card, right?”
In Han Wenqing’s mind, there was no way a Glory addict like Ye Xiu didn’t go out of the town without bringing his card or at least an alt account card to practice or simply mess around in Glory.
“No,” Ye Qiu answered resolutely.
Han Wenqing gazed at him, surprised.
They stared at each other in awkward silence.
Ye Qiu slowly pulled a seat and sat down. “I can watch you play?” he offered with a smile. He always watched Ye Xiu play back then before The Thing. It was a younger sibling’s culture to watch their elder sibling play a game, after all, he was a master of watching a game.
Han Wenqing was about to protest on that idea but he saw Ye Qiu’s sincere smile and paused. It wasn’t as good as dueling One Autumn Leaf on Arena but he figured it was a waste to just walk out after going this far.
“Fine,” Han Wenqing said while shaking his head. “Next time, we’ll have our PK.”
“Sure,” Ye Qiu answered all too willingly. “So, what are we doing today?” he asked curiously, falling back to the old familiar routine.
Han Wenqing inserted his card and went silent thoughtfully. He didn’t actually plan much over having a few rounds of PK with Ye Qiu in Glory. Even if he went to the arena, no normal players could last over a minute and a half against him, the season’s champion.
“Do you have an idea?” Han Wenqing instead asked.
“Me?” Ye Qiu blinked. “H-how about doing quests?” Quests existed right? It seemed to have existed in every game Ye Xiu played before, Glory ought to have quests, right?”
Han Wenqing’s brows almost shot off to his hairline in doubt. “Quests? That’s not like you.”
“Really?” Ye Qiu asked back with a blank smile.
“I thought you’ll say Wild Boss,” Han Wenqing said. Wild Boss fight would be much more challenging, no pro players cared about quests.
Ye Qiu shrugged. “Wild Boss it is. Seriously, Old Han, it’s your character, you can choose yourself.”
Han Wenqing spent the next few dozen minutes locating a Wild Boss through his guild and helped Tyrannical Ambition to kill a level 65 Wild Boss. The whole time, he had his headset only covered one ear while leaving the ear facing Ye Qiu open to listen to the guy in case he wanted to add anything.
Ye Qiu was weirdly silent the whole time, Han Wenqing thought that he was distracted several times but one glance at him proved that the man had his whole attention on the screen. They only talked about superficial things and not too much about Glory, strangely, Han Wenqing didn’t mind the experience.
“What’s that?” Ye Qiu pointed at one particular loot that went to Han Wenqing’s inventory unanimously.
Han Wenqing frowned and clicked on it. “Mission quest. Useless.” What did the Guild’s people think of him? The all-knowing problem-solver? Han Wenqing was about to throw it away when Ye Qiu stopped him.
“Hey, I haven’t read the whole thing.”
Han Wenqing glanced at the hand on his arm and back to his computer screen to click on the mission item again and let Ye Qiu read the whole description of it. This was a level 65 Wild Boss. Still pretty new, he wasn’t surprised that Ye Qiu didn’t know its loot and was somewhat interested, Excellent Dynasty probably only killed this one once before or nothing at all.
Ye Qiu pointed at the screen. “This section says Beyond The Boulder in Fealis Forest in morse code. This one seems like numbers in arabic but without the cursive writing style. It says something about a Lone Tomb beyond the boulder and how to activate a teleportation array to get to the other side.”
Han Wenqing glanced at the man beside him in bafflement and then back to the series of dots and dashes that looked like a failed attempt of lining the quest instead of a code. Looking at it, it could be a morse code. But the way it was written was like a dying silent message of someone who couldn’t speak even if his life depended on it.
“Fealis Forest...” Han Wenqing hummed. He knew where that was, of course he did. It was one of the roaming areas before a particular underground dungeon. It was also littered with monsters and many trees that can cause confusion without a map. “Let’s check it out.”
Desert Dust was intimidating. No one asked him to stay when he wanted to leave, just tearfully screenshotting their avatars to boast later on as they could be in the same frame as the King of Fighting himself. Han Wenqing quickly found his way to Fealis Forest.
He travelled through the place to search for a boulder while killing a monster or two when he felt bored. He normally wouldn’t want to do something as boring as this, but somehow with Ye Qiu watching earnestly beside him, it made him want to locate that boulder in the mission description.
It took a while but he finally found a particularly eye-catching boulder saddled at a side of a cliff, covered with many trees.
“This?” Han Wenqing was not sure. Desert Dust checked the surrounding of the boulder. Running back and forth to half-circle the dark boulder.
“Can you inspect it?” Ye Qiu asked curiously.
Han Wenqing tried clicking. Nothing.
“Oh! Look, the same symbol on the item on that boulder,” Ye Qiu then pointed out.
Han Wenqing squinted and finally saw the faded symbol that nearly became one with its surrounding. He clicked it. A window appeared, much to Han Wenqing’s surprise, but the message had him frowning.
[A Boulder...]
That wasn’t helpful.
“What’s next?” Han Wenqing asked.
Ye Qiu hummed. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But the code in arabic is 183492761.”
“Nowhere to put the numbers here.” Han Wenqing gestured and made an experimental tap on button 1. The window changed.
[A Boulder... 1]
Han Wenqing’s brows shot up. He then pushed the keyboard towards Ye Qiu. “The numbers,” He said curtly.
Ye Qiu filled in the rest of the numbers and the window disappeared when he pressed the last number. Han Wenqing looked at Ye Qiu doubtfully.
“The numbers form eight-tipped star if you type it from the numbering pack, you see?” Ye Qiu explained.
Han Wenqing’s screen went blank white for a few seconds before he appeared in an unfamiliar environment with a monster waiting for him at the end of the narrow passageway.
Level 65.
Desert Dust fearlessly rushed forward and attacked the monster. Upon seeing the damage he could go for with the monster, Han Wenqing didn’t hesitate much and quickly solo-ed the monster. Any normal player would need at least three people ganging up on the boss but not Han Wenqing.
Han Wenqing harvested the loot and looked at the wooden box in the altar the monster guarded.
He let Desert Dust approach it when a window appeared yet again.
“In this life, what you long the most?”
“Pick love,” Ye Qiu pointed.
Han Wenqing picked ‘Love’ option without blinking, completely trusting Ye Qiu’s judgment. The window disappeared and Desert Dust approached the box. The box snapped open and the loot immediately got transferred to the inventory.
Seeing the loot, Han Wenqing blinked in surprise. So many Skill Books? Adding them all, there were at least 150 worth of Skill Points there, something that wasn’t even possible by dominating a large-scale event.
Han Wenqing looked at Ye Qiu who looked back at him.
His lips parted. “Why love?”
“The Wild Boss is the earlier monster’s husband who got corrupted into a monster and longed to reunite with his awaiting wife in the tomb. The wife was also waiting for her husband and guarded her own tomb. It was a love story, so the answer should be ‘love’, right?” Ye Qiu pointed out.
Han Wenqing checked his inventory again for the quest item but it was no longer there so he couldn’t confirm.
“That was fun,” Ye Qiu then leaned away, cracking his neck and stretching a bit.
Han Wenqing clicked all the Skill Books to add his Skill Points and logged out of Glory. “It’s late. I’ll take you back.”
“Ah? No, it’s fine. I was planning to go eat first.”
“My treat, then. Let’s go.” Han Wenqing gave no room to argue and directly walked out.